The rotten odor of apartheid

Apartheid was the system of segregation between races in South Africa in the years between 1948 and 1990. The system is still present in various forms in different countries, including the so-called state of Israel. Perhaps it is known to you that there are roads on the West Bank where only Jewish settlers can drive, not Palestinians: – According to the website www.unitedcivilians.nl – “Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank can not travel freely. They are not allowed on the tram to East Jerusalem or to Israel, or just the border to Jordan. In many places there are checkpoints where the Israeli army controls the Palestinians. Israelis are free to cross the borders. For the Israeli settlers in the West Bank, separate roads have been built where the Palestinians can not drive. ”

Apart from the fact that occupying forces are picking up more Palestinian territories, some articles are already talking about more than 40% of the West Bank occupied by Jewish settlements, military bases, so-called nature reserves, ‘Jewish’ roads, agricultural land and the wall, the judiciary, political and police forces are very well to discover apartheid.

Basically, on the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority is the appropriate authority to address its inhabitants, but the occupying power has its own law, the so-called Military Act; a kind of super act that states that occupying power can do anything, what it wants to protect the state or find on a site: “The law is an inheritance of the British, and gives the government the potential to have citizens to be arrest and hold on for no reason, to claim property and circumvent the civil justice system, “as a commentator formulated in Ha’aretz.”

If we then look at what is happening in practice by the occupying power through ‘the law’ towards the Palestinians, then we can read the following (further information can be read on the website www.khamakarpress.com):

Prisoner Jamal Assila is sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for beating of a colonist, but a military of the occupying power will only get 18 months if he kills a Palestinian in cool blood and there was commotion over the last 18 months is too much and then it is taken out of pity for just 14 months;

Palestinian prisoner Ziyad Awad is sentenced twice a lifetime (and for convicted Palestinians a lifetime is 99 years) because he killed the occupying police officer Baruch Mizrahi in 2014;

The prisoner Tareq Duwaik from Jerusalem is sentenced to 17 years in prison for an attempted assassination by a knife attack on illegal settlers. Some colonists suffered a wound, but Duwaik was beaten up and had to stay in hospital for a considerable amount of time.

These are just three examples of the past few days, so it goes on every day, day in, day out. Palestinians are being arrested, and if they can already appear before a court, apartheid speaks a word.

But very often, it is different: the Palestinians are arrested and thrown into prison or other detention center without any form of court action or accusation.

Last week, three Palestinian female activists were released – yes, certainly: released – after three months of administrative detention without any form of case law or accusation. One of the three women was 53-year-old Khitam al-Saafin, president of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committee.

The Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Studies released last week that the occupation force since the start of the Jerusalem Intifada had captured more than 14,000 Palestinians from 1 October 2015, including 3,100 minors, 437 women and 450 online activists.

According to the site www.samidoun.net , 63 other Palestinians were arrested without charges or prosecution. The site reports: “Administrative detention orders, which can arrest Palestinians without charge or trial based on confidential evidence, will be issued for one to six months and may be extended indefinitely. Palestinians have been imprisoned for years without charge or prosecution under administrative detention. There are currently about 450 Palestinians under administrative detention from a total of 6,200 Palestinian political prisoners. “

And then there are politicians and media in the West who dare to say that there is jurisdiction in the occupying power; If it is, then it is only for Jews and Jewish settlers, but not for the Palestinians. The jurisdiction of the occupying power is as rotten as a misguidedness. Richard Falk has put it down in his report to the UN, and although the report has been withdrawn, it concludes that “the criminal occupation of Palestine and Israel’s racist policy against Palestinians is apartheid, is true.”